Let Out
by Mystic25
Summary: Speculation on what happens when Damon and Elena come upon Stefan after he escapes from the safe in 5x02. Damon/Stefan centric. Rating: M for imagery.


"Let Out"

Mystic25

Summary: Speculation on what happens when Damon and Elena come upon Stefan after he escapes from the safe in 5x02. Damon/Stefan centric.

Rating: M for imagery.

A/N: The ending of the second episode had me so intrigued, so here is my answer.

**xxxxXxxxx**

"_I'm not Snow White, but I'm lost inside this forest."_

~Natalia Kills "Wonderland"

**xxxxXxxx**

It was dark.

The kind of dark that bottomless pits and the recesses of caves were made of; where there wasn't even any shadow because there was no _light_ to bounce shadow off of. Where the only indication that there was anything out there except the solid wall of darkness was running smack into the trees that couldn't be seen.

At least that second part would have been a problem had Damon not been able to see in the dark for over a hundred years. He avoided the trees like they were cones in a driving course, his boots crunching under fallen branches and dry grass.

"Nothing like walking blind to our possible deaths, " Damon threw over his shoulder, to the place that he knew Elena would be.

"Damon that's not funny," Elena's voice sounded off right where he expected. Her eyes glowed with a green lumiosity in his night vision like he snapped a picture of her and she got caught with that horrible camera glare eye.

"I'm not being funny Elena," Damon returned to his girlfriend. "I'm stating a fact-"

"It's _Stefan_ we're talking about," Elena snapped at the same time a branch snapped under her black boots.

"Exactly," Damon cut her off. "It's Stefan who drained a fully grown man of his total blood volume, then followed up with half the people at the backwoods tavern in the woods for dessert."

They had driven in Damon's convertible for three hours until they reached the bar on the border of Virginia where there had been a report of a massive bear attack five days ago, at least before an eerie radio silence had come over the entire local police department.

"Silas trapped him in that safe for three months, Damon," Elena's voice rose an octave, angry, at Damon's indifference to his own brother. "He was hurt, and scared, and _starving-"_

"Well the good news he isn't anymore of those since he flipped his switch off and clawed his way back to dry land."

"Damon will you _stop_ it!" Elena pushed her way in front of him, her curtain of hair lighting up green in the highlighted areas like a laser slow.

They had emerged through the woods, and the stars and the artificial light decided to show themselves like they were Red Riding Hood and the Huntsmen, except with Vampires. Ahead of them was a clearing of grass that looked like it had been freshly mowed.

A building sat in the middle of it made out of weatherworn logs, a neon sign hanging above it in the shape of an arrow with the word: _BAR _ suspended in the middle of it like a word bubble above a comic book character's head. A dozen or so Harley's were parked around a porch lit with hanging bulb lights.

But despite the presence of all the motorcycles, Damon couldn't _hear_ anything inside the cabin.

Elena stared towards the bar.

Damon took a hold of her arm. "You're not going."

Elena started dead ahead at the bar, studying it. "Yes, I _am-"_ She broke out his grip and started towards the bar but Damon took a hold of her arm and snapped it back like a rubber band.

"Damon!" Elena jerked her arm out of his grip, or she tried to. Even as a Vampire, Damon was over a 100 years older than her, and stronger.

His night vision receded in the lit area, and he saw Elena in her true shades, her face was partly drawn in shadow and her brown eyes looked up at him, livid.

"If Stefan's in there, this isn't going to be the hugs and kisses reunion you pictured! " Damon retorted, still gripping her arm in a tight hold. "He's flipped his switch-"

Elena fought for control of her arm back."I've dealt with Ripper Stefan before Damon!-"

"No you dealt with five seconds in the lifetime of a _legend_!" Damon returned. He relented her arm back, but Elena continued to glare at him. "My brother is 143 years older than you Elena, he's stronger, and just downed a town-full of human blood, which, on top of making him stronger makes him _psychotic_!"

"He still Stefan!" Elena shouted the argument she had been using ever since she found out about Stefan's weakness around human blood. "We have to help him!"

"No _I_ have to help him," Damon retorted. "_alone._ Because you'll let human emotions get in the way and not do what needs to be done in order to get him back!"

Elena stared at him like '_what needs to be done'_ was a weapon that Damon had brandished before her. She squared her shoulders and stared at her boyfriend. "_I'm coming._"

Damon glared back at her like he was going to do something that he was infamous for; like chain her to a tree and leave her there to echo every English curse word that she knew at him. But he stared up at the completely lit, completely silent bar, then back at Elena, and realized that he didn't have time to undertake such a task.

"Fine. But you follow _my _lead on this, no bursts of pity understand?" Damon's voice was metallic as blood. He was steeling himself for what he _knew_, what countless years of following his little brother's path of destruction, told him would be inside that building.

Elena didn't object this time, she simply gave a silent nod and followed Damon as he stepped onto the shorn grass and up the wooden steps to the bar's porch.

The front door was made of wood so old that it was more black and gray than anything else. Damon reached for the doorknob, but pulled his hand back when he realized that the door was ajar, spilling a vertical sliver of low light onto his jacket front.

He placed a palm flat on the door and pushed, the door opened with a '_creak'_

Elena ducked under his arm and stepped inside, Damon quickly followed.

The inside of the bar matched the outside, totally made of wood, down to the painted black chairs and putting green colored tables. A cedar wooden ceiling fan spun dust into the air over a fully stocked bar with black covered stools lined up beside it.

The air smelled stagnant with blood.

At least a dozen people sat in the chairs around the tables, two at the bar, half empty glasses beside them. The sound of voices was completely absent.

Elena stepped over to the bar, to the nearest person, a woman with hair as blond as Caroline's, in a checkered plaid shirt and jeans. She was completely still over an empty beer bottle; Elena set a hand on her arm to try and check her pulse, and the woman's head fell off her neck and bounced down on the floorboards by Elena's shoes.

Elena jumped back with a gasp, her hands raised in shock.

A man in a black biker jacket and red bandana sat beside the headless woman; Damon pushed the man's forehead with his finger and his head met the same fate as the woman's.

Elena's shock intensified. "What the hell?!"

"Damnit Stefan," Damon cursed, looking around the shadowed light at all other people, searching in the recesses. He finally saw the dark stains of dried blood in massive puddles under every table, gone almost black from the near week they had been there, the smell of the puddles contents still cloyingly evident.

The table closest to the bar had three people, two men and one brunette all with grayed skin and dead stares. But the blood underneath their table was lighter in color.

Damon knelt down next to the table and touched the stain, his fingertips coming away tinged in fresh blood.

Damon stood back up and held out his blood splattered fingers to Elena with a repulsion, that had nothing to do with the blood. "He's still here."

"Actually, I'm _back."_

The voice came from the very back of the bar, by a window darkened by the night. Under it stood an neon lit jute box. The audible sound of a button being pushed came and the opening chords a synthesizer vibrated through the room before a woman's deep voice filled the bar.

"_I'm not Snow White, but I'm lost inside this forest,_

_I'm not Red Riding Hood, but I think wolves have got me.."_

A figure emerged slowly from shadows, the sounds of water damaged boots hitting the wooden floor.

Elena's breath drew in a gasp when she saw him. "Stefan-"

Stefan's clothes were the same ones he had worn three months ago, all dark, with a leather jacket, Except now they reeked of stagnant water and dry rot, and were frayed at the ends. A whiskey bottle hung loose in his right hand, the lip of the bottle stained in dry blood.

"Elena," Stefan's voice was slow like honey dripping off a comb. He sauntered over to where Elena stood with Damon, his face emerging with overly bright eyes.

Stefan stopped in front of her. "You shouldn't have come here."

"_..Don't want your stilettos, I'm not not Cinderella..." _

Elena said nothing, didn't have _time_ to say anything before Stefan disregarded her with a slow swiveled movement of his neck, turning to Damon, brown eyes fixated on him.

"Hello brother."

"_..I don't need a Knight, so baby take off all your armor…"_

**xxxxxXxxx**

Damon watched as Stefan slowly closed the gap between them, the bottle in his hand sloshed it's heady smelling whiskey inside. The closer Stefan got to him, the more Damon could smell rot of the quarry and the water on him.

Stefan stopped right in front of Damon, setting a hand on his shoulder. "It's good to see you Damon."

Damon could smell the fresh blood on Stefan's breath, he felt the tight grip, Stefan's eyes were too reflective, pupils too dilated. He responded in kind to his brother's gesture. "You too man."

Stefan was so fractured, Damon felt it slicing through in that touch.

Stefan gave a molasses slow kind of a smile and released Damon's shoulder, turning back to Elena like he was just now remembering her existence.

"Elena-"

"Stefan," Elena breathed out his name, her heart pounding in her ribcage as she simultaneously checked him over for injuries. She saw the torn, frayed hole in his shirt, and the blackness of a dried blood stain. "Are you okay?-"

Elena was cut off when Stefan grabbed her face and kissed her a little too hard, leaving her gasping when he broke contact, and her mouth tasting like blood.

"I'm fine, Elena," He smiled again around a dry laugh from a voice that sounded both thick and raspy at the same time, like it had only been used recently after a 90 day stint submerged underwater to rip apart people's necks. "I'm better than fine actually."

"You sure about that Stef?" Damon retaliated, looking around at all the stiff corpses around the bar, the smell of rotting flesh becoming nearly overpowering. "Because it looks like you might have had a _little_ too much to drink."

Stefan dry laughed like a reedy woodwind instrument left out in the sun to crack. "Always with the sarcasm, Damon-"

"It's called _observation_ brother," Damon said. "I just call the bodies like I see them." He tracked his brother's next movements slowly.

Stefan turned to him with a hand placed flat on his neck, staring at him for a long moment before he kissed him, on the brow. It was the kind of kiss Stefan used to give Damon back when they were human, as kids whenever one of them had been apart from each other to 'train on the ways of manhood' (It had started earlier for Damon, him being older. The hunting expeditions, the genteel gentlmen's meetings in cigar filled back rooms of Virgina Tobacco companies.) Back in the 1800's when they were human, it wasn't an uncommon thing.

But having him do it now as a Vampire unnerved Damon, because Stefan had _never_ done it since he became a Vampire.

Stefan patted the side of Damon's face "That's why you're the older brother Damon, and I'm just the guy who broke out of the safe," Stefan backed away with this turning towards the jute box that was still playing the same song. His body became cloaked in half shadow again and Damon saw him raise the whiskey bottle to his lips, taking an enormous hit from it.

_"When I lay my head down to go to sleep at night,_

_My dreams consist of things that'd make you wanna hide.."_

"Join me for a drink Damon," Stefan turned back around, the bottle in his hand now completely drained. He set it with a audible noise on the tabletop next to a body. "Elena can come too, It'll be just like old times."

Damon grabbed Elena's arm, pushing her slightly behind him. It was an action that Stefan noticed with that dry laugh of his.

"Protecting Elena from me?" Stefan raised his eyebrows. "You are _sleeping_ with her now after all, so I guess you think you're entitled."

"Damn right I'm protecting her," Damon's voice raised to a sharpened pitch. "You're ripping through this place just like all those other times- have you even _left_ here?"

Stefan raised his hand and waged a bare finger at his brother. "Well since you can see that I don't have my daylight ring you should know the answer to that." Stefan laughed for real like he found the whole thing amusing. "I had a nice little set up here," Stefan stared at all the bodies like they were discarded clothing he had tried on. "Especially when they sent the law enforcement to check on this place," He turned to look at something under the bar and Damon saw a man dressed in a police uniform strewn under the barstools, a ring of dried blood around his neck. Two more were sprawled next to him."Saved me all those trips into town."

_"I want the love, the money, and the perfect ending._

_You want the same as I, so stop pretending.."_

"You know what-" Damon released Elena and stormed over to the jute box, smashing through it with his fist, throwing the room into a shattered silence. He produced Stefan's bulky daylight ring, that he had taken from the pocket of Elena's jeans. A thick band with a blue stone that bore their family crest and Stefan's initial in a calligraphy script of pure silver. "Party's over brother," he held up the ring to Stefan in between his thumb and index finger. "Throw away your leftovers, we're going home."

Stefan laughed again, this time dropping his head with the noise. "You really think it would be that easy Damon? You think that I would just follow you and Elena back home so you can lock me in the cellar to dry out so that I can be back to sipping bunny blood by this time next week?" Stefan stared at Damon with a cock of his head. "You really think that's any way to treat someone who's been stuck in a box for three months?"

"Stefan please," Elena stepped around Damon before he could haul her back, snatching the daylight ring out of Damon's fingers. She held it out to Stefan in the palm of her hand, her other hand was raised as if in surrender. "I know what you went through was terrible, but you're _out_ now." Her eyes looked up to him beseechingly. "You're safe, you don't have to be scared anymore."

"I'm not scared, Elena," Stefan made no move to take the ring from her hand, he simply stared at it like it was a pebble she had plucked from the roadside. "Not anymore at least." His eyes raised up to encompass both her and Damon in his sight. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to repeatedly drown over and over again? It's like be set on fire from the inside out." Stefan answered his own question when neither his brother nor Elena responded fast enough to his liking; saying it with a clinical detachment like it had all happened to someone else."The pain of it is so blinding that you black out, and when you black out you just drown again, only this time much faster" Stefan moves in front of them like he is a lecturer in front of a college class. "And it all _repeats_ itself until one day you just can't take it anymore and switch off all of that for all of this-" Stefan raised his arms to all the bodies he had drained in the last five days, who's blood he could feel coursing through his veins, filling him with an aura of power so intense it felt like he had swallowed the sun.

"Stefan," Elena took another step forward to him. "Let us help you-"

"You can't help me Elena, " Stefan said in a flat affect. "You and Damon didn't even know I was gone-" His eyes became accusatory, but only with a surface level anger, like someone had stepped on his foot and made him mad. "I may have no emotions, but I can still read the shock on both your faces that I'm even _here._ Guess you were too busy enjoying the finer aspects of being alone in that _greeeat_ big house to care about anything else-"

"Stefan, I'm sorry." Elena was close enough now to grip his hand. She plucked the ring out her palm and slid it up on his finger so that it rested where it had been for over a hundred years. "I'm sorry we didn't look for you." Her eyes raised to his, her heart was pounding. "But we're here now," she raised a hand to his face, setting a palm to his cheek. "Okay? Just please come home. It's over."

Stefan looked down at her coldly. "Maybe for you."

Elena shook her head, a veil of tears covering her lashes, her eyes sad. "Stefan-"

Damon stepped in front of Elena, moving in between her and Stefan, physically lowering her hand off of Stefan's face. "Enough with the devoid no humanity surface anger at Elena, brother. It doesn't give you a free pass to run around and Ripper through downtown Mayberry."

" You know, t's so _admirable_ the way you care for Elena, Damon." Stefan's voice was as emotionless as a statue that had suddenly decided to come to life and talk.

"I'm not talking about Elena, _Stefan_," Damon's voice became a rumbled growl. "Boo hoo, you were locked in a safe for three months. No one noticed Wonder Boy Vampire of Mystic Falls was gone." Damon got right up into Stefan's face. "Stop_ whiniing_ about it! You busted out, you ate the entire population of a town. So flip it back on and quit acting like a _dick._"

Stefan laughed again, and this time it sounded maniacal. "I actually prefer my emotions turned off, Damon. It makes it much clearer to think-"

"Think about what? How Elena and I slammed bodies for three months after you told me you were fine with it? How happy we were?"

Stefan snorted another crazy sounding laugh. "Is that the best you got Damon? Because if it is I might have to just go kill somebody else so I don't have to listen to your big mouth."

"Avoidance, brother." Damon retorted. "It's not an emotion, it's a _tactic_. It's one that I invented, so you can't use it on me. So how about you quit pretending that you're flippant towards Elena and let's get on with it. Underneath that emotionless outer shell is a great big gooey center of Damon hate isn't there?"

Stefan's dark brows furrowed, his head ticked. "Nice try Damon."

"I'm the one who told you to throw him into the quarry," Damon retaliated. "I'm the whole _reason_ that you were out there in the first place as Silas bate-"

"Shut up, Damon." Stefan's voice was still emotionless, dark eyes gazing at Damon like he was an insect that was annoying him.

"Why?" Damon returned flippantly. "I mean, you don't have any emotions turned on inside Team Stefan so it's not like this will bother you-"

"I said that's enough, Damon," Stefan's voice rose, still emotionless, but there was something sharpening around the dulled edge.

"I let you desiccate and drown for _three months_, Stefan, all the while shacking up with Elena, not caring that my little brother was dying, over, and over and _over_ again-"Damon punctuated each '_over'_ with a chin thrust towards his brother, getting so close to his face with each of these maneuvers that his breath blew across Stefan's eyebrows.

"I said _shut up!"_ Stefan grabbed Damon's neck and threw on top of the bar, splintering the wood on impact.

"Damon!" Elena screamed, she rushed towards Damon at the same moment Stefan flipped a body off of one of the chairs and broke off one of its legs,. He raised the thing at Damon's chest in a stance to run the stake through his brother.

"Stefan, stop!" Elena yanked on his arm, but fueled with the blood volume of an entire town, Stefan was much, much stronger than her.

Damon intercepted the stake moments before it hit him. He flipped back up and rushed at his brother with all his strength, sending Stefan sliding across the wooden floor, splintering apart a crack like a miniature crevasse all through the wood.

Damon grabbed the stake from where it had fallen and ran to where Stefan had landed on the floor, and without any hesitation, plunged it into his body.

"Damon _no!"_ Elena screamed at the same time Stefan did.

Stefan's scream was a gasp of hot pain as the stake buried itself just above his heart.

"You had to bust yourself out of your own prison, and _stumble_-" Damon twisted the stake inside Stefan's chest, Stefan's scream grew louder. "-around looking for something to take the agony away of starving for 90 days! I forced you become a Ripper again, all the while Elena's been having 'weird feelings' that something happened to you, but I didn't have _one, _your own brother-"

Stefan's scream became guttural. He writhed on the ground, trying to grap the stake out of his chest.

"Damon, stop it!" Elena yelled. "You're going to kill him!"

Damon half knelt over. "You felt this kind of searing pain for _three months_, and I was totally oblivious to it until three days ago. No more lies!- Say what you're really mad at brother-" Damon twisted the stake even harder, and Stefan roared so loudly it shook the roof. "_SAY IT!"_

"_You should've known I was gone!"_ Stefan raised his head off the grown in a feral growl, brown eyes almost completely black as he stared at Damon with the full heated emotion of angered pain that finally sharpened enough and broke through the inhumanity. "_You should've known before anyone had to tell you; before I had to do any of this!"_

Damon yanked the stake out of Stefan's chest and his brother gave one last hard scream before falling back on the floor in a series of choked pants.

The air felt like a giant blister had broken free, spilling out all the venom that had poisoned it. Damon tossed the chair leg aside where it rolled next to the leg of one of the dead women. He reached down and grabbed Stefan's arm jerking him up and shoving him into the chair, toppling the body in it to the floor.

Stefan fell into the chair heavily, the fresh blood on his shirt covering the old stain. Damon grabbed an old bar rag off the floor and pressed it to the wetness. "Get the gas cans from the car," he said to Elena. "We need to torch this place."

**xxxxXxxxx**

The door to the reinforced steel door creaked and opened inward.

Damon stood in the doorway, Elena behind him.

The cot that they kept in there still sat in the corner, against the concrete bricks. Stefan sat on it, knees bent, arms drawn up over them, facing the stone wall, away from the shafts of sunlight that had started to shine in through the high barred window.

Stefan didn't acknowledge either of them, starring at the wall, like he was trying to carve something out of the stone using his mind, his fingers absent mindedly twirling his daylight ring. He hadn't objected to being brought back to the Boarding House, not bothering to change out of his blood stained, water logged clothes before he followed Elena and Damon down to the cellar and inside the little room.

Damon took in the sight of his brother, and walked inside the cell; Elena didn't follow.

Damon knelt down and sat on the concrete floor, back against the wall Stefan was facing.

He spread one long leg out next to the cot, staring at the shafts of sunlight that cut through the darkness like trailing ribbons. "I'm sorry Stefan."

Damon glanced over at Elena, who stood in the doorway starring at them both. He gave her the slightest of nods, her eyes a swirl of so many heavy emotions they were a storm. She reached for the handle and closed the door, clicking the heavy metal bolt into place.

Damon turned his head against the wall, back up to the cot and saw Stefan watching him. The humanity in his brother's eyes wounded, haunted.

Damon held his brother's gaze for a long time before it shifted to the sunlight, until the sunlight was gone, and only the darkness and Damon still remained.

**xxxxXxxxx**

**End.**

I didn't want Stefan to become a Ripper again, but I found it intriguing that he flipped his switch because Damon told him too in his hallucination, because his visions of Damon was all about his brother wanting him to survive, however he had to. And also, I feel that Stefan would be more angry at Damon for not knowing that he was gone that Elena. Because, yes Elena was his 'true love', but the relationship with your brother is very, very different.

R/R please.


End file.
